INDIA: MERCY FOR MAN ON DEATH ROW SINCE 1998

a man identified as Govindasami, who had been on death row in India since 1998, had his death sentence commuted to life imprisonment by President Pratibha Patil. Govindasami allegedly killed his uncle, aunt and three cousins over a property dispute on May 29, 1984, at Kondayampalayam, Erode district. He was 17 years old at the time of the crime. He was to be hanged in 1999 but the Madras High Court stayed the execution.